A small wooden sign popped on the corner of North Dupont Boulevard and College Park Lane last month announcing that the Pennsylvania-based grocery chain Redner’s Warehouse Markets would soon be opening a new location in Georgetown.

THE PROGRESS

Corporate officials at Redner’s confirmed last week that the company is looking to open a new location off of College Park Lane by mid-2014, but declined to comment further because they have yet to sign a lease.

Once that deal is brokered, the new grocery store would be a part of the larger Shops at College Park, an approximately 120,000-square-foot commercial development planned off of North Dupont Boulevard slated to include retail shops, office space and a medical arts pavilion.

Redner’s Markets Inc. spokesman Eric White said the grocer is looking to build a location in Georgetown that would be roughly the same size as the 48,500-square-foot Redner’s that opened in Milford last August, or the 48,000-square-foot Redner’s in Camden that is scheduled to open in March.

Georgetown would be the grocery store’s fifth location in Delaware and its second in Sussex County.

All four existing Delaware locations feature full-service delis, as well as fresh produce, meat, seafood and frozen food sections, a dairy aisle and beauty aids. Some of the employee-owned chain’s most popular offerings include its regular, five-for$20 deal on meats and the Pump Perks fuel discount program, which offers a 10-cent per gallon savings on gasoline for each $100 spent at the grocery store.

The Redner’s locations in Milford and Camden also each have hired about 150 people to full- and part-time jobs.

WHAT’S NEXT

Redner’s is still working towards finalizing a lease for the property with the Onix Group, the Kennett Square-Pa. developer of the Shops of College Park.

In the meantime, representatives of the developer and the grocery chain are scheduled to make an informational presentation to the Georgetown Planning Commission on Feb. 20.

Dean Pletz, the vice president of real estate at the Onix Group, said his company is hoping to begin construction on the Shops of College Park in the summer.

It was not immediately clear, however, whether that timetable would be impacted by the recent federal indictment of Dover-based developer Mike Zimmerman, who is listed as the contact person on the sign advertising Redner’s future Georgetown location.

Zimmerman, who also is working with the Onix Group and Redner’s on the grocery store chain’s Camden location, is facing charges of money laundering, conspiracy to commit bank fraud charges and making false statements to financial institutions in connection with $37 million in financing he received from the Wilmington Trust Company for a trio of unrelated development projects in Kent and Sussex counties.

Page 2 of 2 - Zimmerman, who has publicly denied guilt in the case, did not return multiple messages seeking comment.